


last leaf

by claquesous



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, flower child rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7755655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claquesous/pseuds/claquesous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey’s whole gardening pastime was seeming less cute and harmless by the second—much like Rey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	last leaf

**Author's Note:**

> This is for tumblr user trebu-shot, who I think is now chief-nurse-maggie, and I think she's in some trouble, so I don't know if you will see this, but I wish you the best and hope this satisfies!
> 
> Title from OK Go song.

Since she laid eyes on Maz’s palace on Takodana, Rey was captivated by the idea that plants, on most planets, were autonomously beautiful things, not just purely functional weeds that clung to their lives by a few tangled roots on a good day and just barely managed to support the ecosystem on a bad one. She still wasn't sure she believed Jakku had any native life at all; without supplemental scavenging off the sentient, space traveling population, the predator-heavy food chain went in circles.

So whenever she went to a new planet, Rey took a small plant with her on the  _ Falcon _ . She tended to favor flowers, because they were small and novel. They were the antithesis of everything on Jakku, and sometimes it was nice to remember she didn't need a purpose or a plan to exist and flourish.

She'd rigged up a swinging nursery in one of the supply closets so that no matter how she abused the ship's tempting specs, she rarely had any spilled dirt or stranded flowers. Whenever she missed Maz, she would pet the silky leaves of a vine she'd gathered on a second trip to Takodana, which had been so pitifully small at first she hadn't realized it was a vine, and now was snarled around the UV lamps she'd hung in the nursery. She even took a trip to Corellia to find a plant that reminded her of Han: a prickly rose-like flower that hogged all the light and was generally difficult to take care of. She smiled every time she thought of it, but she could feel it jar Luke every time he saw it. Rey didn’t know whether he’d read her mind or simply knew that it was Corellian and therefore commemorated Han.

She made Luke pick what to bring back from Ahch-To, and he’d scooped up a patch of soft red moss from behind his little hut. He seemed to like her hanging gardens, and meditated there often when they were stuck in hyperspace.

Contrary to popular belief, she discovered, not all plants cared about sunlight and water. She had a spiky, waxy succulent from Tatooine that she fretfully watched shrivel until Chewbacca suggested she plant it in sodium-rich soil, which perked it right up. She potted each plant in its native soil from then on. Her Coruscanti mushroom thrived on ship exhaust, so every few weeks she'd douse it in Peragian fuel, which seemed to be its favorite kind.

Rey's favorite was a handful of wildflowers Finn had picked her on D’Qar. They were bright blue with yellow seed pods that she occasionally found floating around the  _ Falcon _ on what seemed to be little cottony wings. She loved the downy little reminders of Finn brushing her cheeks. Not quite as much as a Finn hug, but this she could have anywhere in the galaxy.

When Poe had heard about her garden, or rather, stumbled upon it and almost trashed the whole place by smacking his head into half the hanging pots, he’d brought her a furry little pink-leaved thing from Yavin IV, grinning ear to ear. He was always paranoid he’d kill it, he confessed, and Rey was happy to adopt it. There was plenty of room, and now she had a Poe plant.

Somehow, Finn hadn’t seen the nursery until he barged in thinking it was a bathroom, and immediately knocked his blue wildflower to the floor, shattering the ceramic cup with a small avalanche of D’Qar’s purplish soil.

Finn froze, horrified. He remembered giving those to her; they were at least three times the size now, a few months later. He’d been so proud of them, too. He’d only ever seen them in one place on the whole planet, and he picked the prettiest ones. Now they were scattered across the grated floor, the soil vanishing into the innards of the ship along with big chunks of roots. He scrambled to pick them up, but all he could salvage were a few bedraggled flowers missing their seed pods.

Finn almost cried. He’d killed them. He felt a ridiculous urge to bury them. He wanted to fix it before he told Rey, but there was nothing to be done. He wilted at the thought, slumping down on his knees on the floor as he investigated the ruined flowers.

“Finn—?”

He hurtled to his feet, knocking his head on another pot as its resident tried to wrap around his neck. “Rey, I—”

“Hi!”

Finn’s heart sank when her face lit up for him. He offered the dying flowers penitently. “I knocked it over, and—” he gestured at the grated floor, which held nothing but a dusting of purple dirt.

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “I’ve lost a few on the way, too. And anyway, that was yours, so you can pick another one!”

“Mine?” Finn asked.

Rey nodded. “You gave it to me on D’Qar, remember?”

He smiled apologetically. “Yeah. But it won’t be from D’Qar.”

Rey shrugged. “D’Qar was important because you are,” she said.

He buried her alive in a giant hug. “Sorry,” he said.

“Nnnn mmnnd nnnb,” she said into his shirt.

He let go of her with one last squeeze but kept her close as he studied the plants. “Chewie told me about your garden, but I didn’t realize you had so many!”

Rey studied them. “Two dozen plants, eleven planets, fourteen people,” she said.

Finn marveled. “Does General Organa have one?”

Rey shook her head. “I’ve told Luke that he can add to the nursery but he has to tell me who they’re for, but the only plant he’s added is his own.”

Finn shook his head. “So full of himself.”

Rey let out a delightful laugh, a truly happy one with a little bit of surprise embedded in it. Finn needed to do something immediately or his affection would overcome him and he would melt. He strode out of the  _ Falcon _ , letting her flounder briefly and catch up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to pick you another flower,” he said. “Wanna come with?”

Rey skipped to catch up. “Of course,” she scoffed.

They left the high and dry base and trekked into the squelching mud of Abraxin’s ubiquitous swamps. Few of the Resistance’s members actually liked it here, but as always, stealth was the primary concern, and it was a quiet place with settlements few and far between. Nothing of political note had happened here in a hundred years.

About twenty feet into the soft terrain, Finn froze. “What about marsh haunts?” he asked, remembering the warnings circulated when they’d arrived here a few weeks ago.

Rey pushed him forward. “I can tell when they’re nearby. Force-sensitive, remember?”

“Oh,” Finn said. She wasn’t talking about herself; the marsh haunts could use the Force somehow. Finn simultaneously felt more and less safe with that in mind.

“Let’s find a flower really fast,” he said, and Rey laughed, threading her arm through his.

“We’ll be fine,” she told him.

Finn kept her close as their shoes made louder and wetter noises. “How are you going to take care of anything this wet?” he asked.

Rey shrugged. “I can control the humidity in the  _ Falcon _ . I can make a wet nursery in a different closet if I need to.”

The flora near the base was less than enchanting, but here where it started to get really swampy, beautiful orchids sprung out of the mire, violent smears of color against green and brown. He knelt before a vivid orange and red one, and reached for it before Rey smacked his hand back. “That one’s poisonous. Be careful.”

“Well you’re not planning on eating them, are you?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes they’re poisonous to the other plants. That one’s got some kind of nasty acidic coating on the leaves. It’s better left alone.”

Finn stood up warily. “Alright then… Which ones  _ aren’t _ going to maim me?”

“Pretty much all the others,” she laughed.

He spotted a brilliant blue flower and leaned in closer, and it opened right under his nose to reveal bright pink insides with spiky white stamens.

“I like that one,” Rey said. “It eats insects. Might not be easy to feed on a ship, though.”

Rey’s whole gardening pastime was seeming less cute and harmless by the second—much like Rey. He smothered a smile at the thought and gestured to a yellow flower with long, narrow petals that curled open tightly. “What’s wrong with that one?” he asked.

She laughed. “Nothing’s  _ wrong _ with any of them,” she said, “I just can’t take care of them in space.” She bumped shoulders with him fondly. “But that one would be just fine. It’s well-behaved and nonlethal.”

Finn sighed. “Sounds good to me.”

He carefully dug it up under her supervision, and she got out a container that wasn’t quite cloth but looked more like a bag than a pot, and they neatly patted it inside.

She grinned at his curious look. “You can’t break this one,” she promised.

Finn ducked his head sheepishly. “I won’t break anything else,” he protested. “I know where it is now.”

Rey tugged him by the arm back toward the base. “I’m sure you won’t,” she said with a brilliant smile, like a dare.

Challenge accepted.


End file.
